Repurposing Prexy
Last year I was asked by my alma mater, Reed College, to help with the re-design of the Prexy Building on the college campus. It was designed in 1914 by the renowned Portland architect, A.E. Doyle, as a home for the college president, hence its name. The building was subsequently used as a boys’ […]
Chew on This!
It’s not often that I design a room around a dog, but Samoa is a very special dog. She’s a Bernese Mountain Dog, and it was her chewing behavior as a young dog that prompted her owners, Sue and Bob Van Brocklin, to ask Emery & Associates to redecorate their family room. Eventually we worked […]
Make Your Living Room Come Alive
It’s a sad story–hardly anyone “lives” in their living rooms anymore. This is a tale we hear over and over, and here is one example of how we fixed it. The “AFTER” detail above shows a small slice of the adjoining living and dining rooms featured in this post. When the homeowners called Emery & […]
Redesign–What does it mean?
Emery & Associates did a major remodel of a client’s living room fireplace several years ago (see my previous post “Hot New Looks for Old Fireplaces,” February 24, 2011). The clients liked the remodeled fireplace so much that this year they rearranged their furniture so that the sofa faces the fireplace, which has become the […]
Winter White–A Budget Makeover
When it comes to interior design, most people think of me as a colorist. Fact is, I think of myself that way. But recently we needed to replace the flooring in our guest room, which is on the lower level of our home. After consulting with my good friend, interior designer Jamie Devlin, who works […]
High Summer Dining–Bon Appetit!
My clients are having some friends over for dinner tomorrow evening, and I told them I’d bring the flowers for the table since the room is now completed and I wanted to photograph it. The hostess is using her mother’s Spode china (“Buttercup”), and her own coral red place mats and napkins. This space […]
Sweet Dreams
Often the master bedroom is the last room in the house a homeowner tackles, probably because it’s a private space–not the first room seen when guests enter the home. However, it is a space where the homeowners will spend a large part of their time, so it’s important to make it inviting and comfortable. The […]
Cats Rule!
As anyone who lives with cats knows, we don’t own them–they own us. Pictured above is Callie, who came from Holland with my husband and his daughter nearly eight years ago. Callie, and her sister, Cassie, think that the living room sofa is their personal boudoir. The soft, down-filled sofa cushions are just purr-fect. We […]
Master Bedroom Makeover: Light and Luscious!
The young couple who hired Emery & Associates in 2009 to do the main floor of their 1903 foursquare home in Ladd’s Addition called me back this year to do their master bedroom. “It’s really dark. What can you do to help us?” I gave them the obvious answer: add lighting! They really didn’t […]
Moving! Where do I begin?
Nathan Cogan’s phone call to Emery & Associates was straightforward. “I need to hire you because I’m moving from a furnished condo to an unfurnished one in the same building, and need some help sorting out my stuff that’s in storage and also figuring out what new furniture I’ll need. I have a lot of […]